I'm using ecasound v1.6.12r10 now with the recent alsa-0.5.5 and linux
kernel 2.2.14 in a AMD K6-II/350 with 96MB of memory. Still I can only
record and play with OSS emulation. Using alsa only leads to a message
"out of memory". I've tried both the short and long way to access the alsa
devices.

Oops, the system in a Red Hat 6.1 with a self-compiled kelnel, alsa and
ecasound.